Saturday 17 April 2010

Global warming: causes and symptoms

Letter to International Herald Tribune (the global edition of the New York Times) sent 15th April:


Krugman only talks of reducing the causes of AGW (CO2) ["Green economics, the cost of inaction", IHT, 14th April], not the possibility of treating the symptoms (warming).  Yet some seriously brainy folk believe we can significantly reduce global temperatures by judicious geo-engineering. Scientists at Intellectual Ventures, for example, led by ex Microsoft guru Nathan Myrhvold, propose a number of exciting ideas which could be tried for relatively paltry sums and little risk.  If the building is burning, by all means let's get rid of the accelerants; but if we have some water at hand, surely we should spray that on too?
Why don't we hear more about geo-engineering?
Yours, etc...

Hong Kong
Reference: I can't find the 14th April article by Krugman titled (in HK's IHT) "Green economics, the cost of inaction", but his article a week earlier has the gist of his argument.  It's here.